L’Austral and the Iconic Kimberley Expedition

Up early at 6 am, I can see L’Austral has arrived in the early hours of the morning and is tied up at Stokes Wharf, a stone’s throw from the apartment. Unfortunately, I have to be out of the apartment by 10 am, and embarkation for Ponant’s Iconic Kimberley on L’Austral starts at 2 pm.  So there’s some time to kill.

After having packed up the apartment and wrangled luggage into the car, I settle on East Point Reserve as a destination, mostly in the hope of another shady walk among the mangroves. East Point is a popular place, mostly due to the presence of a café on wheels serving coffee and toasties. They have hit on a model of bean bags and empty milk crates high up on the beach, which is well received. Further up the road is the Military Museum, a popular spot with birders, and one huge shady mangrove tree is home to at least 10 different bird species as far as I can see.

I spent the rest of the morning driving around Darwin running last-minute errands (sending cold weather clothes from Adelaide home, buying a spare battery and charger for the Sony RX10 III) and refuelling the X-Trail before returning it to Hertz. It’s now 33 degrees Celsius and while I could roll my bag and camera bag down Mitchell Street to the cruise terminal wharf, it’s just too hot to contemplate, so I catch the eye of a waiting cabbie who is quite happy with a short fare as it means a scenic tour around the Esplanade to get there.

It’s the usual zoo at the wharf for embarkation on L’Austral – groups are being called according to the number received at passport check-in. I’m number 10, the last group, so it’s a long wait. I overhear the cruise director telling a couple behind me that the Captain is Patrick Marchesseau, the same captain from my Arctic trip in 2013 on Le Boreal, and of Somali hijacking fame on Ponant’s original ship Le Ponant in 2008.

I’m in the ‘cheap’ seats on Deck 3, which still has its own small balcony. I learnt my lesson from Le Soleal in the NZ Subantarctic that the cabins without balconies are a bad idea as the air-conditioning is centrally controlled, and the cabins can only increase or decrease the temperatures individually by one or two degrees. It’s a relief to be able to open the balcony door if needed, particularly on this “Iconic Kimberley” expedition. 

Captain Marchesseau announces that everyone is on-board and we can depart earlier than expected, so we are leaving the wharf at 4 pm rather than 4.30 pm as scheduled.  At 5 pm, the cruise director does his ‘life on board’ talk and introduces the hotel staff, which is followed by the mandatory lifeboat drill, which if nothing else tells the crew who are the passengers that will need the most management in the event of a crisis.  There are 170 plus Australians, about 40 French, and the remainder of the 232 passengers are made up of English, Belgian, Swiss, a Japanese couple and about 4 Americans. There are a lot of single travellers, mostly women, which has the ship travelling at less than the total capacity of 264 passengers. There are a couple of teenagers in the mix, which I later work out are the children of the hotel manager and/or on-board doctor, but otherwise, it is all 40 plus, with the majority 60 plus with a good number 80 or above.

Tonight we are sailing towards Vansittart Bay and Jar Island, the first destinations for the Iconic Kimberley expedition, which will take all night and all of tomorrow morning. In the meantime the Darwin harbour pilot leaves the ship, and there is a soft sunset behind us as we head out of Darwin harbour.